Health Psychology - Taking Care of Your Body and Mind

What is Health Psychology?
Health psychology is the study of how mental processes affect physical health, and vice versa. Many health psychologists now use a Bio-psychosocial Model to explain this relationship – which takes into account psychological, social and physical factors when considering health.

Promoting Health:
One of the main goals of health psychologists is to promote good health and behaviours related to good health. They assume that people do have some control in influencing their health through psychologically regulating their behaviour. Health related behaviours can be controlled through our conscious thoughts. People can decrease their risk of death with certain health-related practices:

1. Sleep 7 – 8 hours per day
2. Eating breakfast almost every day
3. Rarely snacking between meals
4. Being at approximately the correct weight for body height
5. Not smoking
6. Drinking alcohol in moderation or not at all
7. Exercising or engaging in physical activity.

The more that are practiced the more the risk is reduced. It is important to note that we control lots of our health through choosing to NOT engage in certain things.

Positive steps can be taken to enhance or health through nutrition and exercise